Robert L. Moore () (Department of Economics, Occidental College)
Abstract
The major advocates of collaborative learning in the college classroom generally suggest that team members should be chosen to complement each other in skills. Similar advice comes from the literature in personnel economics relating to worker productivity in teams Some advocates also suggest that there are advantages in this regard in forming heterogeneous teams in terms of gender, ethnicity and class year, although there are also some drawbacks noted as well from such heterogeneous teams. However, little empirical work has been done on how best to select the most effective student teams (groups) for individual student learning. This paper hopes to begin to fill this gap. It combines information from students’ admission files with individual student performance data on exams in two sections of an introductory economics course at a selective liberal arts college as well as with information about the team the student was assigned to. The empirical results in this paper provide little support for the above suggestions. The results also differ from the results in the only other empirical work on this issue. In particular, heterogeneous teams in terms of gender or ethnicity or class year result in no more individual student learning (and knowledge) transfer than more homogeneous teams, holding other significant variables affecting student learning constant. And there is at least some support for the reverse in terms of class year --- that is, the higher percentage of frosh students on a three or four student team, the more student learning. While it is advantageous to have at least one student on the team with AP Calculus or AP Econ credit, which is consistent with the general advice above, a team with a larger standard deviation of SAT scores (or higher average SAT scores) does not improve individual student learning. There is also some evidence in this study that another characteristic of teams results in positive individual learning, namely if the team had a woman on it who participated in intercollegiate athletics. Finally, while advocates of collaborative learning sometimes recommend avoiding the isolation of a woman or a student of color on a team, there is no evidence in this study that such isolation disadvantages those students in terms of their exam performance.
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